New Faculty 2019-20

A Special Back-to-School Message from Dr. Coffman

Dear Prairie Families,

Welcome to the 2019-20 school year! Our first week has been great with Upper School up North at Camp Manito-wish, and a full Middle, Primary and Early School today. We have record enrollment in the Early School this year and almost 100 new students across our fifteen grades. Please join me in welcoming all of our new families to the Prairie community.

Prairie is an aspirational school that was founded and thrives today on shaping leaders who make a difference. In partnership with motivated parents, we collectively strive for the growth of every student as a scholar, artist, athlete, and leader. To attain this goal, we must continuously grow and improve as educators and parents, working together to know, value, support, and challenge each individual student to be his or her best self. I encourage all of you to be involved in the life of the school. Get to know your child’s teachers, classmates, and friends. Life is a rollercoaster ride, but together we can celebrate the peaks and get through the valleys of the shared experience (even the rough spots — we all have them) within a close-knit educational community.

This summer has been a busy one for our faculty with almost a dozen different growth and development projects taking place, as well as our annual summer reading assignment. This year, the faculty chose one of six books on various aspects of teaching and learning, including work by Doug Lemov and Sir Ken Robinson. Every faculty member came away from the readings and our workshops with new ideas or refinements to make their classrooms more effective learning environments. It was my first time reading Ron Berger’s Ethic of Excellence – Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students, and I am looking forward to applying the principles of modeling and iteration that the text emphasizes in my Government class.

Thanks to your generosity, 2018-19 was a record fundraising year for Prairie. Your support has allowed us to add a new Video Production teacher, make significant upgrades in the art studios, update software, fix multiple leaking walls and roofs, along with filling the gap between your tuition and the actual cost of educating each student. I hope that each of you will increase your philanthropic support of our students through the Parent Prairie Fund so that we continue to thrive.

I also hope that you will join me in welcoming our new faculty members. They are truly talented, experienced, conscientious, and inspiring educators. The group includes a veteran, two college athletes, and several artists who have contributed to projects on- and off-screen. You can read their short biographies below.

On a final note, I hope we all have a great year working together as a community committed to our collective growth and success. We all benefit when we help those around us flourish.

Sincerely,

Dr. Nat Coffman
Head of School and President

Mark Baker – French Teacher

Substitute Teacher at The Prairie School

English Teacher at École Germaine de Staël (Switzerland)

Sales Assistant (Sydney, Australia)

Assistant to the Head of School & English Teacher, International Language School for Children (Brussels, Belgium)

A.S. in Exercise Science, Sydney College of Advanced Education

Did You Know…Mr. Baker used to compete in (and sometimes win) local surfing competitions?

Kelly Christensen – Mathematics Teacher

Mathematics Teacher at Lincoln Middle School (Kenosha, WI)

B.S. in Elementary Education, minor in Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater